Hits and misses - 2

Still to do is the sorting of photographs taken during our fortnight away - and the deletion of many of them. Some of the "hits" include this early morning scene from just outside our lofty Castillian B&B, where we spent the night we arrived in Spain. Wind turbines were everywhere to be seen in both Spain and Portugal. How do they get them up to some of those high places!

And we admired the engineering of all the many tunnels and viaducts on what is an astonishing motorway network: especially below the Picos de Europa, the views of both coastline and mountains are breathtaking, but no photographs alas! I was sorry also to miss the chance of trying to snap the pod of dolphins that accompanied us as our ferry made its way through the rather uncomfortable swell of the Bay of Biscay on Monday evening: my mind was on other things.

Spain: Bilbao

Having been spoilt by our swish Renfe journeys, we now found ourselves on FEVE and Eusko narrow-guage trains, which stopped every five minutes. They were freezing, like in the more dire parts of Southern Region. Comfort was not the first consideration. No luggage racks. On one stretch, there wasn't even a loo. What was worse, our InterRail passes weren't recognised, so we had to PAY.

There were however some pretty sections - river valleys and seaside - on our crawl Eastwards along the North coast, but the mist - and darkness - made it impossible to see anything of the Picos de Europa. Santander - as hinted before - wasn't a great overnight stop, and we didn't have time for a look round San Sebastian. In Bilbao, again we just changed stations - this is Concordia, looking through the rain across the river from our (very efficient) tram.